What’s the best way to combat flooding throughout Park Ridge?  How much will it cost?  How will we pay for it…and how will it affect the City’s ability to continue to provide the customary services we rely on?

These are all good questions.  Too bad Seventh Ward Ald. Frank Wsol and at least a few of his City Council colleagues don’t seem to know and don’t seem to care.

Instead, they’re busy pushing a $420,000 rebate plan that would use already-scarce tax dollars to provide up to $2,500 to residents who have installed private flood control devices (such as overhead sewers, backflow valves and the like) since January 1, 2008.  And from what we’ve seen and heard so far, there may be more than a few residents with the chutzpah to think and act like they’re entitled to such a reimbursement.

We understand how some residents, tired of what has become a fairly regular event of sewer back-up into their basements, would invest $5-10-15,000 to combat the problem.  But we also understand that when one resident prevents his basement from flooding, that means a bit more water remains in the system that has to go somewhere else – like into a neighbor’s basement, or into the street.

While that kind of “collateral damage” may be acceptable under our scheme of individual property rights, the idea that the City would commit public money to reimburse and encourage such efforts that ultimately pit neighbor against neighbor is foolish beyond words.  But let’s try the following words, just for starters:

1.  The City doesn’t have the money for such a program.  This year’s budget was passed with an approximately $2.5 million deficit that has already grown because of spending decisions by a Council that seems unwilling or unable to manage our money responsibly.  And given the economic indicators so far this year, it’s looking like more of the same next year.

2.  It’s welfare, pure and simple.  But it’s not even “good” welfare, because Wsol’s plan (such as it is) does not appear to be based on financial need.  So the well-off can get a quick $2,500 just as easily as the not-so-well-off.

3.  It’s unfair, because the time period fixed for the rebate – currently for work done since Jan. 1, 2008 – is totally arbitrary.  Why should someone who happened to put in his/her flood control system following the August 2007 flooding get shut out of this giveaway?

4.  It’s a willy-nilly, piece-meal response that ignores the root causes of the problem – which makes it look, sound and smell like nothing more than political grandstanding of the worst kind.

5.  It detracts and distracts from efforts to come up with a meaningful, comprehensive, community-wide solution to the problem.

From what we’re hearing, anything approaching a real solution to the problem will require a bond issue of $30-60 million, which would be (as best as we can tell) the largest bond issue in Park Ridge history.  That means we’re going to be looking at a significant tax increase to service that debt unless the same officials who already have shown that they can’t balance a budget suddenly develop the ability and the will to cut expenses enough to compensate for the additional debt service costs of those bonds.

Fortunately, in April the voters rejected Wsol’s previous hare-brained scheme for a big new police station.  So at least we aren’t already saddled with multi-millions in bond debt for a project that is nowhere near as important to our property values and quality of life as an improved sewer system.

Compared to $30-60 million, $420,000 might seem like chump change.  And it is – for the chumps who would sit back and let it get spent for what is either a plain mistake or an inherently bad idea.  That’s why it’s time for all non-chumps to let your aldermen know you don’t want to see them waste any more time and effort on something as ridiculous and wasteful as the Wsol plan.

For the good of the entire community, let’s hope Wsol’s “private rebate” train doesn’t leave the station.